If you cannot politely and professionally give criticism to a developer (even better, mentor them), and instead choose to belittle them, then the problem is with your leadership style, not the developer.
And kind of me shielding the devs from the operations wanting feedback and a quick resolution.
Production is noisy.
Just as it's important to be agreeable under uncertainty, it's important to say no under certainty.
"No, sorry, it doesn't make sense to start sniffing the wire protocol and checking the OS/hardware before testing the application logic first."